Someone presented a revised shedule in the hope it gets unnoticed to bolster the own claim. :diablo:

Are you trying to be a troll? The first is pre-SWAT and the second is post-SWAT. The point of the second slide was to show you that FF meant “Full Funding” and not “First Flight” which you were implying. If you knew anything about the procurement process you would have known what LL & FF meant and I would not have had to school you.

Scorpion82, the slide is from a 2009 Western Aerospace Alliance conference and presented by Keith P. Knotts who is LM’s F-35 International Business Development for Canada and United Kingdom.

http://www.manitoba-aerospace.mb.ca/events/conference_09/keith_knotts_lockheed_martin.pdf

btw, Canada’s Chief of the Air Staff was also at the conference, although he would not have to have been to get this info as Canada has it’s own personnel in the JPO and would have had this information years earlier.

http://www.canadawestaerodef.ca/documents/WAA_Conference_Program_2009.pdf

You might want to go back to learning English as you seem to have a problem understanding it.

All that was claimed is that Blk 1 includes full sensor fusion (from the listed sensors). 2016 is seen as a possible IOC date for F-35s [b]IF[/] they are not able to address the issues at hand. Blk 3 jets, however, will be flying many years before that.

btw, the first F-35 to have Blk1 was flying in early 2010, not Dec.

2008 was NEVER a date to have Blk 3 jets flying, let alone IOC.

This schedule from 2001 (the year the F-35 production contract was signed) shows operational jets flying Blk3 in 2012, not 2008.

Fact-checking called for. The day IOC was declared, Eurofighters were assigned to QRA in Italy. That was in 2005.

BTW, when did the F-22 get an IRST?

Swerve, your making my point re:the F-22’s IRST. The JSF program did not want to fall into the trap of waiting on spiral development to get basic functionality…. Because it may never happen.

On the IOC status of the T1 Rafale and T1 EF:

1. What were their A2A and A2G capabilities?

2. What weapons were certified?

3. Did they have HMDs?

EF went through prototypes, a batch of development & test aircraft, then a full-rate production order. LRIP seems to be a modern US thing.

They may have ordered 150+ EF T1s at one time, but at what rate did they deliver them (how many per year for the first few years)?

–edit–
I just saw that in 2009 they delivered the 200th EF. That is a rate of 30 per year. Btw, that is what the F-35 is doing now in LRIP.

The article talks about fusing, that doesn’t mean that full functionality is provided

Changing your subject much? There is always room for improvement as technology and operational needs improve. But, the meaning of fusion is clear.. whatever data is being sent by the sensors (production level for EOTS btw) is fused completely. The individual sensors have been testing and flying for years and they would not dumb them down in order to do Blk1.

Because at the time those things were cancelled the design was already frozen and built in provisions aren’t bad. The F-35 doesn’t feature a DIRCM either, but the aircraft is built with the necessary provisions in mind to integrate them latter for example.;)

But why were they canceled for production? The answer is that they wanted to reduce costs and they told themselves they could add them later. The DoD remembered this lesson and chose a different path for the F-35.

Correct and the same is happening with the F-35. Much of the functionality won’t be achieved before the latter blocks and that is in fact a spiral development. You are full aware of all the charts for the F-35s block improvements which is a planned spiral development (full EOTS functionality, DIRCM, 6 internal AAMs etc.).

Not quite. Later blocks (which will come every 2-3 years) will be icing on the cake. Blk 3 F-35s will be able to do the entire range of missions required of a multirole fighter. That cannot be said of IOC Rafales or Eurofighters.

Full sensor fusion for the F-35 (including but not limited to EOTS, EODAS, APG-81, MADL, and EWS) is working and flying today in both the CATB and the F-35.

On the budget, my point was that it’s developmental & LRIP schedule was cut to pay for Dev funding needs. If they had left the schedule alone and still paid for the increased Dev needs, then that would constitute “throwing money at the program”. They would also have had more test jets flying today and decreased the cost of production at a faster rate than they

One of the main drivers in the length (and cost) of the F-35’s development is that they are trying to do most of the planned development for IOC. They learned from the F-22 in that later budgets may not allow upgrades that are planned today (ie where is the AIRST, HMD, jammers, and WVR tracking for the F-22). They are going for full sensor fusion, installed IRST, fully functional EODAS, AESA radar, RAM coatings now instead of gambling that the budget will allow it for later.

The F-35 will have a higher multirole capability at it’s IOC than it’s contemporaries did when they went IOC. The DoD and it’s partners know this and that is why they are willing to pay and wait for the F-35 rather than use a more conventional spiral-development process.

And as far as a “Plan B”, we have one (and are using it as needed), it’s called SLEP and new buys of our latest 4th gen aircraft.

btw, what 2nd Rafale? If your speaking of the M, how is it different? The F-35C sports a larger folding wing, larger tail (both vertical and horizontal), new nose gear, tailhook, and a beefier structure throughout.

Yes, the F-35 can be upgraded from earlier blocks to later ones. Money has already been budgeted in FY2011 to upgrade all Blk1&2 LRIP F-35s to Blk3. The Norway docs also said that all purchased Blk4 jets (early purchases) would be upgraded to Blk5 (later purchases).

X-35 flew in 2000. F-35 in 2006. The programme has had money thrown at it …

The F-35 program has had it’s budget cut almost every year. These cuts also included test aircraft that are now having to be borrowed from LRIP jets.

Despite having to design three different jets, deal with SWAT, track three flight test schedules, and with deal with development cuts… the F-35 will likely achieve a shorter First Flight to IOC timeline than either the Raf or EF.

The delays up to this point have been hardware, which has delayed the testing and development of the software… BTW, Blk1 (fully integrated avionics) is flying today in both CATB and F-35s.